Im doing debates in psychology at the moment, personally im a believer of soft determinism, which is that people select what they pay attention to so choose their thoughts and behaviour. But their choices are determined by innate capabilities and past experiences.

A problem with free will is that it is used to explain certain behaviour eg depression however it cant be used to explain schizophrenia when theres huge amounts of evidence on a biological predisposition that causes schizophrenia. It is also said that we dont have free will as for example we may want to murder someone but laws/morals/consequences stop us from going through with this.

Free will was created by the humanistic approach and Rob if you believe in that i recomend trying www.authentichappiness.com it was created by maslow/rogers one of the two. They actually look at the positive side to psychology, not the depressing side such depression/substance abuse.

That link is basically what I must already do. Seems obvious to me and I am always happy, I love life and the experiences it brings. Don't see the point in getting hung up on the negatives like most people do.

What do you mean by "Free will was created by the humanistic approach"?

My belief is that if there was no free will then you are on a predetermined path so that no matter who much you try to deviated from this path then you will ultimately end up at the spot where your supposed to be.

this then is a paradox because all the deviations you try to take might be the right moves to make that send you down you predetermined destination.

my god what have i just written , my head hurts now.
feel free to shoot my down in flames

My belief is that if there was no free will then you are on a predetermined path so that no matter who much you try to deviated from this path then you will ultimately end up at the spot where your supposed to be.

this then is a paradox because all the deviations you try to take might be the right moves to make that send you down you predetermined destination.

my god what have i just written , my head hurts now.
feel free to shoot my down in flames

My belief is that if there was no free will then you are on a predetermined path so that no matter who much you try to deviated from this path then you will ultimately end up at the spot where your supposed to be.

this then is a paradox because all the deviations you try to take might be the right moves to make that send you down you predetermined destination.

my god what have i just written , my head hurts now.
feel free to shoot my down in flames

Yeah, I don't really think that makes any sense. I think you have confused free will and destiny?

Destiny can be taken to mean that you will end up with a predetermined outcome regardless of the choices you make. So you might try to avoid something but what you do to avoid it ends up causing it anyway, or just doesn't work to avoid it etc...

Free will is whether you have the ability to choose your own actions or whether they are predetermined by the laws of nature (or god, or whatever else you want to attribute it to).

Yeah, I don't really think that makes any sense. I think you have confused free will and destiny?

Destiny can be taken to mean that you will end up with a predetermined outcome regardless of the choices you make. So you might try to avoid something but what you do to avoid it ends up causing it anyway, or just doesn't work to avoid it etc...

Free will is whether you have the ability to choose your own actions or whether they are predetermined by the laws of nature (or god, or whatever else you want to attribute it to).

I think you Nailed what i was trying to say, as said i think what i wrote goes more towards the destiny side.